About Me

I’m just an ordinary, average, country girl in the middle of a nice, simple, happy life temporarily interrupted by disease, and a terribly broken medical and insurance industry.

Before becoming ill, I worked hard as an educator of young children, a mom to my own three simply amazing kids, and a partner to my newly re-found high school sweetheart. We worked hard and played even harder in our spare time. Life was good before I became ill with a mystery illness. Things rapidly slowed down and eventually ground to a screeching halt. Some days I simply can not leave my bed. Life has shrunk until almost nothing remains but being ill and battling bugs. But my story needs to be told, because the world needs to know.

This blog will eventually hold many of the pieces of this story, and many grim details. It will also be full of helpful things I have learned along the way. My hope is that this blog will help to raise awareness and educate people. These diseases are increasing at an alarming rate, and increasing numbers of people suffering with them are ignored or misdiagnosed. Everyone needs to know. In this way, I hope my blog will also serve to help people who are sick, because these diseases cause an awful feeling of loneliness others simply can’t understand. There is never enough support for the people in the trenches. Unfortunately, I can’t help in concrete ways either. But I will lend an ear when I can. I will share all the valuable things I have learned along the way through my posts here, because, maybe, something I have found will help you. Remember: I am not a medical professional! My blog is not a place to go to for medical advice!
I teach children tongue twisters and nursery rhymes. I am not a scientist, a researcher, or a doctor; I am just a sick girl trying to find my way out the other side. I do not ever claim anything I say is a substitute for qualified medical advice, but, again, the world needs to know.

Through my journey to save myself and my family, I decided to get some chickens. This was, by far, the best choice I could have made and likely saved my life. Chickens literally are my heroes each and every single day. I want everyone to know the benefits of these free range fowl foragers (I told you my background is in childhood skills like alliteration and phonemic awareness!) This blog will be full of what my family and I have learned, and how we have learned to love these birds in so many ways. But this story, too, does not yet have an end. Turns out I am not zoned for chickens, even though I live in the woods and can barely see any houses through the deep forest. I didn’t even know until I had chickens for quite some time, and had discovered they were the cure for my tick problem. Today, our chickens live in limbo while my town re-writes their chicken laws. The new laws may or may not allow me to keep my tick destroying chickens. This removal of chickens in tick infested areas simply should not be allowed to happen when Lyme disease alone is estimated to affect at least 300,000 new people every year, and chickens are very efficient tick destroyers. It is simply too dangerous. We can not continue to zone out birds as green backyard pest control simply because nobody can patent a bird or profit from their use. This is another reason I write this blog. Because, again, the world needs to know.

I have never been outspoken. I never intended to be a spokesperson for anything other than documenting nature’s beauty through photographs, as I used to do before I became too ill to hold a camera. I haven’t been able to immerse myself in nature or photograph it in almost two years now. My brain can’t stop spinning from the infections long enough to complete my own thoughts, or read a book (Another former favorite past time that I haven’t enjoyed in at least 3 years.) So forgive me if my posts are full of typo,s or run-ons, or just trail off into nothingness. Again, I didn’t intend to ever do something like this, and I am still very ill. I think you will see I still have quite a bit to contribute after the long windy river I have been wading these last few years despite my brain fog. Again, the world needs to know.

I hope you find what you came here looking for and that some tiny piece of my awful story can help you or a loved one, or prevent someone you love from suffering from a tick borne illness.